Etienne BILLETTE de VILLEMEUR

Economics of Interdependence

Research Statement:
Rethinking the Common Good in an Interdependent World
In a world where individual choices primarily affect the decision-maker, designing good institutions can seem relatively straightforward: let people pursue what’s best for themselves.
But reality is more complex. We live on a planet with finite resources, where individual actions have lasting effects on the environment and on the well-being of others — both now and in the future.
Our lives are interdependent in many ways. We share infrastructures, benefit collectively from advances in medicine, and are enriched by cultural and scientific achievements that transcend individual efforts. In such a world, the notion of the “common good” becomes far from obvious, and designing policies that move us closer to it is both intellectually challenging and practically urgent.
My research lies at this intersection — where interdependence, inequality, innovation, and sustainability meet. I work on topics including the energy transition, climate change, access to essential medicines, regulation of public services, and innovation policy. I also contribute to the formal study of justice and fairness through social choice theory and the measurement of inequality.
Many of these questions cannot be fully addressed from within economics alone, and my work often draws on — and contributes to — collaborations across disciplines such as life science, environmental science, and epistemology.
While I don’t claim to have definitive answers, my aim is to better understand these complex problems and to help shape institutions and policies that can improve collective outcomes.
Ongoing Work:
Upcoming results of my current collaborations
"Accounting for Needs when Sharing Costs" - (with Justin Leroux)
"A Transfer Approach to Inequality Measurement" - (with Justin Leroux)
"Efficient and fair pricing of medicines in an unequal world: who should pay for R&D?" - (with Vianney Dequiedt and Bruno Versaevel)
"The public health impact of the Medicines Patent Pool increases with the fragmentation of intellectual property rights" - (with Vianney Dequiedt and Bruno Versaevel)
Publications by Topic:
Selected Papers (extensive list)
Climate & Energy
"Tradable climate liabilities: A thought experiment " Ecological Economics, 164 (article 106355), October 2019 – (with Justin Leroux)
"Integrating Thermal and Hydro Electricity Markets: Economic and Environmental Costs of not Harmonizing Pricing Rules" The Energy Journal, 37(1), 77 – 100, January 2016– (with Pierre-Olivier Pineau)
"Influence of wind power on hourly electricity prices and GHG emissions: Evidence that congestion matters from Ontario zonal data" Energy, 66(1), 458 – 469, March 2014 – (with Mourad Ben Amor, Marrie Pellat and Pierre-Olivier Pineau)
Health & Access to Medicines
"Biopharmaceutical R&D outsourcing: Short-term gain for long-term pain?" Drug Discovery Today, 27 (11), November 2022 – (with Jack W. Scannell and Bruno Versaevel)
"Pool patents to get COVID vaccines and drugs to all", Nature 591, 529, 2021 – (with Vianney Dequiedt and Bruno Versaevel)
"One Lab, Two Firms, Many Possibilities: on R&D outsourcing in the biopharmaceutical industry" Journal of Health Economics, 65, 260-283, May 2019 – (with Bruno Versaevel)
"Dynamic competition and intellectual property rights in a model of product development" Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 100, 270-296, March 2019 – (with Richard Ruble and Bruno Versaevel)
Public Goods, Public Services & Regulation
"Strategic Reneging in Sequential Imperfect Markets" The RAND Journal of Economics, 56 (1), 3-34, March 2025 – (with David Benatia)
"Private provision of public goods under price uncertainty : a comment" Social Choice and Welfare, 63, 171–177, May 2024 – (with Sebastian Cea-Echenique and Conrado Cuevas)
"Optimal Collusion with Limited Liability" International Journal of Economic Theory, vol. 9, n°3, p. 203-227, September 2013 – (with Laurent Flochel and Bruno Versaevel)
"Partial Regulation in Vertically Differentiated Industries", Journal of Public Economic Theory, 13(2), 255 – 287, April 2011 – (with Angela S. Bergantino and Annalisa Vinella)
Social Choice, Inequality & Well-being
"Camels, Dummy, and the Importance of Context", in Future of Economic Design, Studies in Economic Design, Springer, Cham edited by J.-F. Laslier, H. Moulin, R. Sanver, W. S. Zwicker, 2019 – (with Justin Leroux)
"Identity matters to individuals: Group assessment cannot be reduced to collective performance - Commentary on Baumeister et al.", Behavioral and Brain Science, 39, e139, October 2016 – (with Catherine Belzung, Anouk Grevin and Gennaro Iorio)
"Sharing the Costs of Global Warning", Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 113(4), 758 – 783, December 2011 – (with Justin Leroux)
Interdisciplinary Work
"Mechanistic vs statistical exploration in preclinical research in psychiatry: challenging the received view", in Uncertainty in Pharmacology: Epistemology, Methods and Decisions, Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 338. Springer, Cham, edited by B. Osimani and A. La Case, (2019) – (with Catherine Belzung and Maël Lemoine)
"The Design of New Antidepressants: Can Formal Models help? A First Attempt using a Model of the Hyppocampal Control over the HPA-axis based on a Review from the Literature", Behavioural Pharmacology, 21(8), 677 – 689, December 2010 – (with Catherine Belzung)
"Pricing Reactive Power: Some Challenges", in The European Electricity Market: Challenges of the Unification, IEEE Proceedings of the 6th EEM Conference, 2009 – (with Chuma Francis Mugombozi)

Research Statement:
	Rethinking the Common Good in an Interdependent World In a world where individual choices primarily affect the decision-maker, designing good institutions can seem relatively straightforward: let people pursue what’s best for themselves. But reality is more complex. We live on a planet with finite resources, where individual actions have lasting effects on the environment and on the well-being of others — both now and in the future. Our lives are interdependent in many ways. We share infrastructures, benefit collectively from advances in medicine, and are enriched by cultural and scientific achievements that transcend individual efforts. In such a world, the notion of the “common good” becomes far from obvious, and designing policies that move us closer to it is both intellectually challenging and practically urgent. My research lies at this intersection — where interdependence, inequality, innovation, and sustainability meet. I work on topics including the energy transition, climate change, access to essential medicines, regulation of public services, and innovation policy. I also contribute to the formal study of justice and fairness through social choice theory and the measurement of inequality. Many of these questions cannot be fully addressed from within economics alone, and my work often draws on — and contributes to — collaborations across disciplines such as life science, environmental science, and epistemology. While I don’t claim to have definitive answers, my aim is to better understand these complex problems and to help shape institutions and policies that can improve collective outcomes.
Ongoing Work:
	Upcoming results of my current collaborations "Accounting for Needs when Sharing Costs" - (with Justin Leroux) "A Transfer Approach to Inequality Measurement" - (with Justin Leroux) "Efficient and fair pricing of medicines in an unequal world: who should pay for R&D?" - (with Vianney Dequiedt and Bruno Versaevel) "The public health impact of the Medicines Patent Pool increases with the fragmentation of intellectual property rights" - (with Vianney Dequiedt and Bruno Versaevel)
Publications by Topic:
	Selected Papers (extensive list) Climate & Energy "Tradable climate liabilities: A thought experiment " Ecological Economics, 164 (article 106355), October 2019 – (with Justin Leroux) "Integrating Thermal and Hydro Electricity Markets: Economic and Environmental Costs of not Harmonizing Pricing Rules" The Energy Journal, 37(1), 77 – 100, January 2016– (with Pierre-Olivier Pineau) "Influence of wind power on hourly electricity prices and GHG emissions: Evidence that congestion matters from Ontario zonal data" Energy, 66(1), 458 – 469, March 2014 – (with Mourad Ben Amor, Marrie Pellat and Pierre-Olivier Pineau) Health & Access to Medicines "Biopharmaceutical R&D outsourcing: Short-term gain for long-term pain?" Drug Discovery Today, 27 (11), November 2022 – (with Jack W. Scannell and Bruno Versaevel) "Pool patents to get COVID vaccines and drugs to all", Nature 591, 529, 2021 – (with Vianney Dequiedt and Bruno Versaevel) "One Lab, Two Firms, Many Possibilities: on R&D outsourcing in the biopharmaceutical industry" Journal of Health Economics, 65, 260-283, May 2019 – (with Bruno Versaevel) "Dynamic competition and intellectual property rights in a model of product development" Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 100, 270-296, March 2019 – (with Richard Ruble and Bruno Versaevel) Public Goods, Public Services & Regulation "Strategic Reneging in Sequential Imperfect Markets" The RAND Journal of Economics, 56 (1), 3-34, March 2025 – (with David Benatia) "Private provision of public goods under price uncertainty : a comment" Social Choice and Welfare, 63, 171–177, May 2024 – (with Sebastian Cea-Echenique and Conrado Cuevas) "Optimal Collusion with Limited Liability" International Journal of Economic Theory, vol. 9, n°3, p. 203-227, September 2013 – (with Laurent Flochel and Bruno Versaevel) "Partial Regulation in Vertically Differentiated Industries", Journal of Public Economic Theory, 13(2), 255 – 287, April 2011 – (with Angela S. Bergantino and Annalisa Vinella) Social Choice, Inequality & Well-being "Camels, Dummy, and the Importance of Context", in Future of Economic Design, Studies in Economic Design, Springer, Cham edited by J.-F. Laslier, H. Moulin, R. Sanver, W. S. Zwicker, 2019 – (with Justin Leroux) "Identity matters to individuals: Group assessment cannot be reduced to collective performance - Commentary on Baumeister et al.", Behavioral and Brain Science, 39, e139, October 2016 – (with Catherine Belzung, Anouk Grevin and Gennaro Iorio) "Sharing the Costs of Global Warning", Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 113(4), 758 – 783, December 2011 – (with Justin Leroux) Interdisciplinary Work "Mechanistic vs statistical exploration in preclinical research in psychiatry: challenging the received view", in Uncertainty in Pharmacology: Epistemology, Methods and Decisions, Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 338. Springer, Cham, edited by B. Osimani and A. La Case, (2019) – (with Catherine Belzung and Maël Lemoine) "The Design of New Antidepressants: Can Formal Models help? A First Attempt using a Model of the Hyppocampal Control over the HPA-axis based on a Review from the Literature", Behavioural Pharmacology, 21(8), 677 – 689, December 2010 – (with Catherine Belzung) "Pricing Reactive Power: Some Challenges", in The European Electricity Market: Challenges of the Unification, IEEE Proceedings of the 6th EEM Conference, 2009 – (with Chuma Francis Mugombozi)